Commentaria in I Machabaeorum
The Order and Connection of the Books of the Maccabees
Moses in Genesis described the origin of the world and of the Church of God; then its propagation, down to the kings of Israel, Saul and David, is related in the book of Josue and of Judges. Next in the book of Kings its progress is recounted, which it had under the kings, namely Saul, David, Solomon, etc., and likewise what it suffered from the kings of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, whose was the first monarchy. Then in Esdras, Nehemias, Tobias, Judith, Esther are commemorated the things, both prosperous and adverse, that befell the same Church, namely Israel and the people of God, in the second monarchy, which was that of Cyrus and the kings of the Persians. Now in these books of the Maccabees are related the advantages and disadvantages that befell the same in the third monarchy, which was that of Alexander the Great and of the Greeks, namely from the Antiochi, kings of Asia and Syria, and the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt: for between the two Judea always wavered in the middle, now friendly, now hostile, to these and to those.
Furthermore, four books of the Maccabees are found, of which this is the historical and chronological order. In the first place, in the order of times and of deeds done, the third book of the Maccabees must be placed, because it recounts what befell Israel and the people of God under Ptolemy Philopator, king of Egypt, and Antiochus the Great, king of Asia. In the second place must be put that which is now placed second in the Bibles, because it embraces the deeds and wars of Judas Maccabeus with Antiochus Epiphanes, who was the son of Antiochus the Great. The third place is claimed by that which in the Bibles is the first of the Maccabees, because to the acts of Judas it adds the deeds of Jonathan and Simon, the brothers and successors of Judas. The fourth place is claimed by the fourth book, because it writes the deeds of John Hyrcanus, who was the son of Simon the brother of Judas. But among these four only the two middle ones are canonical; the other two, namely the first and the last, are apocryphal, that is, of hidden and uncertain authority, yet not false or condemned; such likewise are the third and fourth books of Esdras.
Again, the first book of the Maccabees which stands in the Bibles, as canonical, differs much from the second, and was written by another author: for it savours of the Hebrew phrase, the second of the Greek. Again, the first dates by the years of the Greeks, numbering them according to the Alexandrian reckoning; the second according to the Chaldaic reckoning, which differs from the Alexandrian by a whole year and a half, as I shall show in its place. Finally, the second book narrates the acts of Judas in a different way from that in which they are narrated in the first book, and never mentions the first book. Lastly, the first adds to the acts of Judas the acts of Jonathan and Simon, which the second omits.